Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

[a1ex2001]

You've completely failed to grasp the point; energy use from one household to the next varies considerably depending on circumstances. Heck, energy bills for users posting in this thread seem to vary from £60/month to £400/month.

I appreciate that grants to help the poorest pay for energy are effective. They ensure that money is actually spent on energy. But it's a poor solution for the general population. Take two people. One is currently paying £60/month. The other is paying £300. They're looking at bills of £108 and £540 respectively from October. How do you provide a grant that gives meaningful help to the person paying an extra £240/month without making energy cheaper than today for the person paying an extra £48/month? Capping the price of energy is a very effective way of providing proportional relief to households. And if the current cap is maintained, energy is still sufficiently expensive as to encourage households to try and save power.

The trouble is capping it at current levels is an incredibly short term measure, the pressure for price rises isn't going away anytime soon so all you do is spend a huge amount of money now a lot of which helps people who don't need the help and delay the inevitable pain to early next year. I'm not sure what the best solution is right now probably somewhere in the middle ie restricting the cap rises and helping the porrest. Capping the energy prices for the mega rich is just money pee'd up the wall.

 

[Mickie]

Wouldn't it just be more cost effective to die? A race to the bottom is wrong when we let the greed of corporations hoard our money..
I'll never stop celebrating Christmas, Britain is already culturally bland as it is.. This Gov and capitalism is destroying this country, its sickening.

 

[dl8860]

We're already bankrupt with all the borrowing they're doing.

UK debt to GDP ratio is second lowest of the G7 countries. We are very much not bankrupt currently.

 

[kinetic747]

The way things are going turning the heating on for an hour will be a Christmas treat.

 

[Lysander]

Some good news on my end. I was on the phone to EON for about 45 minutes this morning after submitting a reading. They said that they have underestimated our readings[!] but that is was hard to have an accurate figure of real outgoings since they've had so few readings.

I said for our flat £253 a month was ridiculous and they said, "how much do you want to pay then?" I said "how about £100 because that's what our neighbours pay". They agreed to reduce it to £150 to give some overhead and said they would reduce it further if we give monthly readings.

£150 is still way better than £253 a month, and with the extra £66 a month off from October, that means we should be paying max £84 a month through the Autumn and Winter.

 

[Zenduri]

Some good news on my end. I was on the phone to EON for about 45 minutes this morning after submitting a reading. They said that they have underestimated our readings[!] but that is was hard to have an accurate figure of real outgoings since they've had so few readings.

I said for our flat £253 a month was ridiculous and they said, "how much do you want to pay then?" I said "how about £100 because that's what our neighbours pay". They agreed to reduce it to £150 to give some overhead and said they would reduce it further if we give monthly readings.

£150 is still way better than £253 a month, and with the extra £66 a month off from October, that means we should be paying max £84 a month through the Autumn and Winter.

I would highly recommend proving monthly readings and tweaking your DD as needed as you dont want to assume £100 is enough "based on what the neighbour is paying" (which is a terrible metric) and then get caught in 3 months time owing a tonne

 

[Puzzled]

Some good news on my end. I was on the phone to EON for about 45 minutes this morning after submitting a reading. They said that they have underestimated our readings[!] but that is was hard to have an accurate figure of real outgoings since they've had so few readings.

I said for our flat £253 a month was ridiculous and they said, "how much do you want to pay then?" I said "how about £100 because that's what our neighbours pay". They agreed to reduce it to £150 to give some overhead and said they would reduce it further if we give monthly readings.

£150 is still way better than £253 a month, and with the extra £66 a month off from October, that means we should be paying max £84 a month through the Autumn and Winter.

Don't want to be a downer but unless you know your usage those figures are a bit meaningless.

 

[Lysander]

I would highly recommend proving monthly readings and tweaking your DD as needed as you dont want to assume £100 is enough "based on what the neighbour is paying" (which is a terrible metric) and then get caught in 3 months time owing a tonne

Don't want to be a downer but unless you know your usage those figures are bit meaningless.

Oh, absolutely agreed. I said to them I'll be providing monthly readings to them from now on.

 

[Lysander]

Why don't these companies have someone who comes out to read the meter? That's what used to happen.

I don't think it's because we live in a block of flats. Amazon have no issues getting in.

 

[200sols]

Reducing to £150 doesn't make any sense unless you have built up a massive credit with overpayment at £253.

 

[krooton]

Why don't these companies have someone who comes out to read the meter? That's what used to happen.

I don't think it's because we live in a block of flats. Amazon have no issues getting in.

Because that results in unecessary overheads due to salaries.

They will have people who do spot-checks from time-to-time, but not everyone does. Needing to cover all homes, getting a reading once a month, is complicated at costly.

 

[MatsyLR]

Oh, absolutely agreed. I said to them I'll be providing monthly readings to them from now on.

Just switch to direct debit whole amount so you pay the exact bill based on your readings each month.

 

[Minusorange]

One in eight think energy bills will fall this winter

People massively underestimate how high bills are likely to go in October, new research suggests.

www.independent.co.uk

You have to laugh that's quite the optimism

 

[Surveyor]

Oh, absolutely agreed. I said to them I'll be providing monthly readings to them from now on.

If I remember correctly you're all electric. What's your annual consumption in kWh and are you on a single rate tariff?

 

[Uther]

Just switch to direct debit whole amount so you pay the exact bill based on your readings each month.

I don't think he's in a position to get hit with a £500 bill in January...

 

[Uther]

Just had my annual review from EDF, £500 in credit. Have they put my DD down even though I'm on a cheap deal until 2024 and there's £400 credit coming?
Nope.

£350 refund, result.

 

[Lysander]

Reducing to £150 doesn't make any sense unless you have built up a massive credit with overpayment at £253.

We were about £350 in credit. I don't know if that's a lot or not.

 

[the shadow]

Some good news on my end. I was on the phone to EON for about 45 minutes this morning after submitting a reading. They said that they have underestimated our readings[!] but that is was hard to have an accurate figure of real outgoings since they've had so few readings.

I said for our flat £253 a month was ridiculous and they said, "how much do you want to pay then?" I said "how about £100 because that's what our neighbours pay". They agreed to reduce it to £150 to give some overhead and said they would reduce it further if we give monthly readings.

£150 is still way better than £253 a month, and with the extra £66 a month off from October, that means we should be paying max £84 a month through the Autumn and Winter.

what the neighbour is paying Funniest thing ive heard in a while

 

[200sols]

We were about £350 in credit. I don't know if that's a lot or not.

Its probably just about right to cover winter usage but if we do get prices doubling then it may not cover it.

 

[McPhee]

The trouble is capping it at current levels is an incredibly short term measure, the pressure for price rises isn't going away anytime soon so all you do is spend a huge amount of money now a lot of which helps people who don't need the help and delay the inevitable pain to early next year. I'm not sure what the best solution is right now probably somewhere in the middle ie restricting the cap rises and helping the porrest. Capping the energy prices for the mega rich is just money pee'd up the wall.

A cap would need to be in place for (at least) a couple of years, not a few months. It's going to take time for the Ukraine crisis to be resolved, or for Europe to wean itself off Russian gas.

Could always fund that through increasing general taxation on higher earners, going some way toward offsetting the "helping people who don't need it" problem. Riffing on an idea from yesterday, I wonder how much money could be raised if the personal allowance started to fall at £80k rather than £100k, hitting £0 at £100k instead of £125k? That would target the top 5% of earners with up to £2.5k of extra tax.